Danielle Allen
Professor of Public Policy, James Bryant Conant University Professor
Democracy and AI
Understanding the promises and perils that AI holds for the future of our democracy
Related Programs
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Allen Lab: Technology & Democracy, Nonviolent Action Lab, Reimagining Democracy Program
The proliferation of artificial intelligence has the potential to upend our democracy — for better or worse.
AI tools could allow for new forms of participation while at the same time facilitating the spread of misinformation. As regulators and policymakers struggle to understand the implications of this new technology, Ash Center experts are answering questions about how best to govern AI and not just reactively respond to the many issues that continue to arise.
Can AI be a force for good in our democracy? How do we prevent it from becoming a tool for those who wish to undermine our institutions and trust?
Explore our latest events, research, and writing below.
Meet the Experts
Archon Fung
Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation;
Co-Director of the Program on Democracy and the Informed Public;
Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government
Bruce Schneier
Non-resident Senior Fellow
James Waldo
Professor of the Practice of Public Policy, HKS;
Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, SEAS
Sarah Hubbard
Associate Director for Technology & Democracy
Commentary
AI could shore up democracy – here’s one way
What if AI turns out to be the one tool able to identify what makes your ideas special, recognizing your unique perspective and potential on the issues where it matters most?
Commentary
How AI could take over elections – and undermine democracy
In a new article for the Conversation, Ash Center Director Archon Fung and Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig introduce Clogger, a hypothetical political campaign in a black box.
Policy Brief
Putting Flourishing First: Applying Democratic Values to Technology
In this short web ethics research brief, the authors unpack and comment on the four-step logic at the core of GETTING-Plurality’s foundational white paper, Ethics of Decentralized Social Technologies: Lessons from Web3, the Fediverse, and Beyond. They outline four assertions from the paper that demonstrate the power and the challenge of web ethics – and above all, the urgency – of placing human flourishing at the center of technology governance.
Policy Brief
Plural Publics
The authors highlight why we believe the problem of “plural publics” to be a core challenge of data governance, discuss existing tools that can help achieve it and a research agenda to further develop and integrate these tools.
Feature
Bruce Schneier Wants to Recreate Democracy
Arguing that American democracy has been hacked, the computer security expert doesn’t want to just fiddle on the margins when it comes to re-envisioning what a new 21st-century American democracy should look like.
Commentary
How AI could write our laws
ChatGPT and other AIs could supercharge the influence of lobbyists—but only if we let them.
Video
Book Talk – A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back
You’re invited to watch a book talk with Harvard Kennedy School’s Bruce Schneier, author of “A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back.” Schneier was joined in conversation by moderator Archon Fung, Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government.
Commentary
We Don’t Need to Reinvent our Democracy to Save it from AI
When is it time to start worrying about artificial intelligence interfering in our democracy? Maybe when an AI writes a letter to The New York Times opposing the regulation of its own technology.
Q+A
Hacking to harm and heal democracy
In a new book, Bruce Schneier details how tricks, exploitations, and loopholes are benefiting those in power — and how a ‘hacking’ mindset can help us set things right.
Digital Humanism: The Time Is Now
Digital humanism highlights the complex relationships between people, society, nature, and machines. It has been embraced by a growing community of individuals and groups who are setting directions that may change current paradigms. Here we focus on the initiatives generated by the Vienna Manifesto.
Commentary
How ChatGPT Hijacks Democracy
“… for all the consternation over the potential for humans to be replaced by machines in formats like poetry and sitcom scripts, a far greater threat looms: artificial intelligence replacing humans in the democratic processes — not through voting, but through lobbying.”
Commentary
To Fix Tech, Democracy Needs to Grow Up
There isn’t much we can agree on these days. But two sweeping statements that might garner broad support are “We need to fix technology” and “We need to fix democracy.”
Policy Brief
Bridging-Based Ranking
This report explores the potential of bridging and discusses some of the most common objections, addressing questions around legitimacy and practicality.
Commentary
The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question
Fixating on the degree—rather than the type—of decentralization is leading us astray.
Policy Brief
How AI Fails Us
Researchers and funders should redirect focus from centralized autonomous general intelligence to a plurality of established and emerging approaches that extend cooperative and augmentative traditions as seen in successes such as Taiwan’s digital democracy project to collective intelligence platforms like Wikipedia.